Fight OUT Loud has created a moving video about the surge in Hate Crimes in 2008. The disturbing statistic is that every 8 days in 2008 an LGBT person has been murdered. And these are just the people we know about, since hate crimes are notoriously under-reported.

Even worse, there is a new name that has been added that is not in the video-- Daniel Yakovleff, who was only 20. His picture and story are after the jump...

Daniel Yakovleff was a 20 year-old hairdresser from Boston, MA who was brutally stabbed to death in January 2008.

Besides the frequency of the violence, there are other numbers that are even more frightening.

Of the 8 reported murders, 5 were under 25 years old (the youngest was only 15), 6 were transgender or gender-variant, and 5 were African-American.

As the video says:

Wake Up. Get Angry. Get involved.

We must work to protect the most vulnerable members of our community. And when I say community, I mean the LGB and the T. We cannot afford to tell any part of our community to "wait for their time" for rights and protections to come.

For these 8 lives, and for countless others, the wait has been too long.

Visit Fight OUT Loud or any of the other great LGBT organizations fighting for our community and take an active role in our community's struggle. We can no longer afford to be silent.

Leave a comment

We want to know your opinion on this issue! While arguing about an opinion or idea is encouraged, personal attacks will not be tolerated. Please be respectful of others.

The editorial team will delete a comment that is off-topic, abusive, exceptionally incoherent, includes a slur or is soliciting and/or advertising. Repeated violations of the policy will result in revocation of your user account. Please keep in mind that this is our online home; ill-mannered house guests will be shown the door.

Waymon, keep up the work. We need to keep the Right tied to the dead from our community that they leave in their wake.

I wrote a rant on Pam's that I will share here. Just a historical note--the Irish war of independence began with what is called the Easter Rising, hence the name:

Will You Join The LGBT Easter Rising?

It is time, long past due, for Gay, Lesbian and Trans-people to declare that our right to full citizenship and equality is indefeasible. The long usurpation of our rights by religions opposed to true human freedom, the interference with the sovereignty of a secular Republic in support of that usurpation has not extinguished our rights, nor can they ever be extinguished save by the destruction of the LGBT people.

For three generations the LGBT people have asserted their right to true freedom and equality. Multiple times they have asserted it through uprisings against a tyranny.

Standing upon our fundamental rights and again asserting it increasingly vocally in the face of a hostile, armed and violent enemy it is time to demand full equality, protection for both ourselves and our beloved Republic from the depredations of those opposed to human liberty and progress.

Through our desire for true citizenship, we have risked and pledged our lives to the cause of our freedom, our welfare, and our equality amongst all Americans

The community as whole is entitled to and claims the allegiance of every LGBT person. In turn, we must and we shall demand equal rights and equal protection for ALL of its' members. We declare our unalterable resolve to persue the the happiness and prosperity of the whole community, treasuring all of the LGBT people equally and without regard to the differences carefully exploited by the enemies of our equality and their allies seduced from the ranks of our own who have time and time again tried to divide the majority from the minorities.

Representatives chosen from amongst us, not those capable of purchasing a seat at a table of the few who have proven all too willing to compromise, must be prepared to demand, to lead, to inspire.

We must commit to follow the path of freedom to the end, to achieve the final peace, a meaningful citizenship, freedom and equality.

Pledging myself and my abilities to this cause and this end;
Maura Hennessey

Thank you for acknowledging that most of them are gender-variant. To everyone who claims that we don't need gender identity in ENDA or that TG people should just be quiet and not rock the boat, please watch this and remember that while they were GLB people, they were also T.

The day of remembrance this year is going to be really bad, it's plain to see already. :(

I have only been to one day of rememberance, it was the first year after I started transition. It was a lovely ceremony, held on the south steps of the Texas state capital, state troopers looking on, our mayor spoke, and people laid flowers as the names were read off.

Haven't been to one since.

It is just too sad and to suddenly be thrust into a group that, all in all, has as great a chance of being murdered as your average crack dealer in east L.A. is, well depresssing. Not that I am as high of a risk as some of my poor misguided sisters who like... men! (what are you thinking? The worse I face from a lover finding out I am trans is maybe a slap in the face and a bit of cursing, never heard of a transwoman being killed by her lesbian lover now, have you?).

Sorry, in a black sense of humor kind of mood today for some reason.

Being prone to depression and all, and having a way overactive imagination, well I just can't take the day of rememberance. It reminds me too much of what I have lost in life by transitioning. (Of course, I wouldn't be alive today if I hadn't, but then I never think of that part of it, only the negative side of it.)

Male privledge, which I used to not believe in, gone. Being a member of the white hetero over class, also gone. Any hope of ever being that ever elusive, and pretty much non-existent thing called "normal", Nuh-uh, not in this life time. And, just to make it worse, I see the light, and become a witch!!!

So now I am an apostate from the southern baptist church.

Am I asking for trouble or what?

So, will they murder me for being trans, a lesbian, or a witch? Your guess is as good as mine.

Somewhere, somehow we really need a large event for an International Transgender Day of Remembrance similar to the memorial service at the World Trade Center.
All of the names, dates, places, and causes of death would be read to an audience of thousands.
It would attract media attention, and it could not be ignored.
Someone who is reading this may have the savvy and the resources to get this done. Or a reader may know someone who can get this done.

But it must be done.

The violence must end.

I agree completely with comment number 2.

Is the Day of Silence on April 25th just for the youth of our country? It doesn't have to be.
Think about it.